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New insights into Australia’s productivity problem

Productivity Commission Media Release

A new report from the Productivity Commission shows that labour productivity fell sharply in 2022-23, as a record-breaking increase in hours worked failed to generate a similar increase in economic output.

The Annual productivity bulletin 2024 provides the most complete picture to-date of the drivers of Australia’s productivity decline over 2022-23.

“We now have a clearer understanding of what’s behind Australia’s productivity slump. Sharp increases in working hours have seen productivity decline, but this makes policies to boost productivity even more important,” said Productivity Commission Deputy Chair Alex Robson.

Labour productivity fell by 3.7% – well below the long-term average growth rate of 1.3%. This result was driven by a 6.9% increase in hours worked by Australians – the highest annual increase in history.

The decline in labour productivity was accompanied by slow hourly wage growth over the year. Despite this, average incomes increased.

“Australians’ incomes grew in 2022-23, mostly because they worked more hours. But productivity growth is about working smarter, not working harder or longer. Given our labour force participation rate is near its historical high, we won’t be able to rely on working harder or longer as a source of income growth moving forward,” said Deputy Chair Robson.

“What’s worse, we know nominal wage growth without productivity growth can fuel inflation. Sustainable, long-term wage growth can only be realised by securing productivity gains.”

The capital-to-labour ratio fell by 4.9% in 2022-23 – the highest recorded decline in Australia’s history. This meant on average, each worker had access to a shrinking amount of capital, which weighed down labour productivity.

“Employment growth easily outpaced capital deepening in 2022-23. So while a record number of Australians had jobs, employers didn’t invest in the equipment, tools and resources that are needed to make the most of employees’ skills and talents. Further capital investment would help turn our strong employment growth into strong productivity growth,” said Deputy Chair Robson.

The decline in labour productivity over 2022-23 reversed the gains seen during the earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Measured productivity rose rapidly during COVID-19, mostly due to a temporary sectoral shift in employment, away from low productivity industries to higher productivity industries. This data shows that this pandemic ‘productivity bubble’ has well and truly burst,” said Deputy Chair Robson.

The report also found that wage decoupling – the extent to which productivity growth fails to drive growth in real wages – was slightly higher than previously thought for most Australians, partly due to revisions in the Australian Bureau of Statistics historical data.

“The relationship between wages and productivity weakened slightly, but it is still strong over the long run. This reminds us that productivity growth is still the only path to sustainable growth in real wages over time,” said Deputy Chair Robson.

 

When released, this publication can be accessed from the Commission’s website at www.pc.gov.au

 

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Online retail saved Australians from even higher price rises: new research

Australia’s inflation crisis would have been worse if it wasn’t for lower priced products and increased competition from online retail channels, according to new research by Mandala Partners.

The new report, Surf, Shop, Save: Online retail helps lower the cost of living, analysed the impact of online retail channels on inflation, by comparing the prices of more than 60,000 products sold on online channels with the Consumer Price Index.

To estimate the cost-efficiency effect, the report analysed a sample of over 60,000 distinct products from online channels, creating a time series of prices from 2019 to 2023. Using this data, an ‘Online Channels Index’ (OCI) was constructed and each category of the OCI (e.g., clothing and footwear) was compared to the corresponding sub-group of the ABS’ Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The research finds that, without the cost-efficiency and competitive effects of online retail channels, annual inflation would have been 0.7 percentage points higher at its peak in 2022.

While all Australians have experienced cost savings from online channels, lower-income households have disproportionately benefited from the presence of online channels.

The report, commissioned by Amazon Australia, found savings from reduced handling and improved distribution not only lowered prices for online products, but reduced prices across the broader retail sector due to increased competition and consumer choice.

While inflation rose, prices for online goods fell between 2019 and 2023. By December 2023, the difference between the change in online prices and CPI was 10.5 percentage points, meaning the average Australian household saved almost $3,500 – equivalent of receiving three weeks’ free groceries each year since 2019.

Report author and Mandala partner Adam Triggs said it was clear online shopping had eased the cost-of-living burden on Australians.

“This research indicates online retail may be the unrecognised hero of the inflation crisis,” Dr Triggs said.

“Australia faced a perfect storm with supply chain challenges, the war in Ukraine and disruptions to global trade. But inflation would have been worse without online sales, which helped drive down prices directly and create competition to ease pressure on offline sales.

“Retail is a mix of online and offline channels, and retailers are increasingly blending them to reach consumers. As part of that mix, online channels are having a powerful competitive impact, helping consumers more easily shop around for the best price.

“Without online retail channels, the Reserve Bank would have hiked interest rates by an extra 0.5 percentage points, and today’s cash rate would be 4.85 per cent.

“These savings make a real difference to Australians trying to manage household budgets.”

The Surf, Shop, Save report is being launched on Thursday, 29 February by Labor MP and economist Dr Andew Charlton at a cost-of-living seminar at Parliament House in Canberra.

 

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The Burning Man

By James Moore

I suppose it is an easy argument to make that anyone who sets themselves on fire has mental health issues. Aaron Bushnell, however, seemed beset with conflicts of political morality. When the young active-duty U.S. Air Force serviceman put himself to flame outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., he said, and wrote, in advance that he would not be complicit in a genocide. He suggested the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli assault and American support was far more than the brief pain he was about to endure, and he would not be complicit in a genocide.

“Free Palestine, free Palestine,” he screamed as the fire brought him down.

The video, even blurred in parts, is hard to watch. Bushnell calmly narrates his act as he walks toward the embassy. In another distinctly American moment, a cop or Secret Service officer runs up and unholsters his gun and points it with two hands at the man dying on the ground. Did he expect fire from within the fire? An extinguisher was quickly used but Bushnell was declared dead after emergency transport.

The U.S. media did not know how to handle the tragedy. Anchors and pundits were clearly uncomfortable discussing the act and too often implied it was the product of a troubled mind more than politics. The goal was to get on the record with the story and then move on quickly to the broader generalities afflicting the American scene. We are a parochial nation and tend to view foreign affairs as mostly irrelevant until we see flag draped caskets arriving on our shores. Even the use of billions of our tax dollars to affect what is increasingly looking like a genocide does not seem to be of significant political or cultural consequence. Each death of a Palestinian child is seemingly justified with the mundane and hackneyed catch phrase, “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

Establishment news sources immediately set about the business of diminishing Bushnell’s act. One publication ended its report by offering up suicide hotlines for anyone troubled and considering self-harm, as if Bushnell were lacking his full faculties when he decided to create the ultimate form of political protest. The religious convictions of his parents were being characterized as cultist and coverage frequently implied he was close to anarchist groups that supported Hamas, even though the Palestinian youth groups he liked on Facebook all denounced Hamas and its leader Mahmoud Abbas. Bushnell was raised by two loving parents in a compound of Christians known as “The Community of Jesus,” which former members have successfully sued and publicly criticized. All indications are that he was no longer a member after he left four years ago and joined the Air Force. Colleagues who knew him in the military as a software engineer-in-training, described him as kind, soft-hearted, and caring, the diametric opposite of the angry radical as he is being portrayed in widespread reporting.

Bushnell, who was scheduled to leave the military in less than three months at the end of a four-year hitch, was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base here in Texas. The Pentagon was slow to offer a response to his dramatic act but when it finally did, the thematic overtones were predictable. It was “tragic” but the U.S. military’s “support of Israel’s right to defend itself remains ironclad.” The spokesman also told a news conference that the U.S. continues to urge Israel to make careful considerations to reduce civilian casualties, advice which has clearly gone unheeded since the five-month invasion has now cost more than 30,000 lives. A potential cease fire for hostage exchanges will slow a death count in Gaza but Israel’s Netanyahu has promised to invade Rafah when the conflict resumes. About 1.5 million Palestinians are in refugee camps at that spot and cannot be relocated, which indicates bloodshed of innocents will be massive.

 

 

Given American media’s response to Bushnell’s dramatic act, expecting a political swing against Israel is a waste of intellectual energy. He is clearly being marginalized as a madman, but people frustrated with their ability to have an individual impact on horrible situations can sometimes be compelled to act irrationally, or, perhaps with more courage than can be comprehended by observers. Self-immolation is not a new form of political protest and has had some historic importance. The Arab Spring, in fact, which forced out many heads of state in the Mideast, began when a Tunisian street vendor self-immolated in 2010. A similar act occurred outside the Israeli Embassy in Atlanta last December by a woman carrying a Palestinian flag. A self-sacrificial form of complete defiance, which is, arguably, also a surrender to helplessness, first gained notoriety during the Vietnam War.

In the states, it began with an 82-year-old woman pouring lighter fluid over herself and touching it to flame to protest the War in Vietnam in 1965. A Quaker, Alice Herz, according to her daughter, did not suffer “from delusion or psychological compulsion but “had an idea about the need to do something to call attention to the gravity of the situation.” A few months later, another Quaker, pacifist Norman Morrison, drove from Baltimore to the Pentagon and burned himself alive outside the office window of the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. Morrison was holding his child. Herz and Morrison appeared to be emulating another self-immolator, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk who burned himself alive in Saigon a few years earlier to protest the policies of his country’s president, which were increasingly favorable to the Catholic Church and not the Buddhist majority. Buddhists claimed discrimination and persecution under President Ngo Dinh Diem. Recurrent demonstrations and unrelenting public outrage in Vietnam followed the death of Quang Duc and Buddhist monks united with civilians to press for democratic reforms, religious freedom, and human rights.

 

 

No account was ever made of the number of Buddhists who duplicated Quang Duc’s final decision but it became a frequent occurrence as the war ramped up and oppression increased against their religion. Eight Americans chose it as a form of protest on their home country’s soil during the Vietnam Era. Although these acts are profound forms of protest to war and other injustices, there tends to always be a religious subtext. In Vietnam, Cardinal Frances Spellman of the New York City Archdiocese, saw the U.S. presence in Vietnam as a chance to expand the church, and worked closely with the Diem regime. Policies became increasingly repressive for the Buddhist majority as the war wagged on and Catholics worked to increase baptisms. The only difference between the plight of Vietnam Buddhists in the sixties and that of the Palestinians is the worship of a different god. The IDF, meanwhile, acts as America’s proxy army instead of the Pentagon sending in our troops, which emotionally disconnects the dying from Americans determined to avert their eyes.

We hardly seem to care anymore, even when the blood flows in our own streets.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

James Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,” three other books on Bush and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as two novels, and a biography entitled, “Give Back the Light,” on a famed eye surgeon and inventor. His newest book will be released mid- 2023. Mr. Moore has been honored with an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his documentary work and is a former TV news correspondent who has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976.

He has been a retained on-air political analyst for MSNBC and has appeared on Morning Edition on National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, CBS Evening News, CNN, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, among numerous other programs. Mr. Moore’s written political and media analyses have been published at CNN, Boston Globe, L.A. Times, Guardian of London, Sunday Independent of London, Salon, Financial Times of London, Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets. He also appeared as an expert on presidential politics in the highest-grossing documentary film of all time, Fahrenheit 911, (not related to the film’s producer Michael Moore).

His other honors include the Dartmouth College National Media Award for Economic Understanding, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association, the Individual Broadcast Achievement Award from the Texas Headliners Foundation, and a Gold Medal for Script Writing from the Houston International Film Festival. He was frequently named best reporter in Texas by the AP, UPI, and the Houston Press Club. The film produced from his book “Bush’s Brain” premiered at The Cannes Film Festival prior to a successful 30-city theater run in the U.S.

Mr. Moore has reported on the major stories and historical events of our time, which have ranged from Iran-Contra to the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, the border immigration crisis, and other headlining events. His journalism has put him in Cuba, Central America, Mexico, Australia, Canada, the UK, and most of Europe, interviewing figures as diverse as Fidel Castro and Willie Nelson. He has been writing about Texas politics, culture, and history since 1975, and continues with political opinion pieces for CNN and regularly at his Substack newsletter: “Texas to the World.”

 

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Cognitive Bias

By Bert Hetebry

A term I had not come across before but can cover a multitude of sins: Cognitive Bias.

Reading an article in the Guardian this morning, there was a report on an inquest into the death of a man who had died from perforated stomach ulcers a day after being sent home from a hospital visit. The reason a man died from perforated stomach ulcers was because he was misdiagnosed with cannaboid hyperemesis syndrome, in other words, he was thought to be high as a kite from smoking some quality hash. He was an Aboriginal man, and the doctor, explaining his misdiagnosis based his diagnosis on the first impression he had formed because “There is a lot of marijuana use in the community. It’s just pattern recognition.”

The seemingly never ending saga of the killing of young Aboriginal man, Kumanjayi Walker, now with the inquest into his death in its eighteenth month, probing yet again the cultural issues which led to the death of this troubled young man, shot by a police officer who was acquitted of murdering him, who now fronts the coronial inquest questioning the inherent racism which appeared to have been part of the police culture in Alice Springs at the time of the shooting. Some of the text messages presented to the court indicate that Aboriginal people were not respected by the police, racist slurs and crude descriptions were normal discourse it seemed, reducing First Nations people to be seen as less than human. A perception which then normalises physically violent and verbally abusive behaviour.

The incarceration rate of First Nations people is outrageous. At 30 June, 2023 Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander prisoners accounted for 33% of all prisoners throughout Australia but are less than 4% of the population. Does that mean that First Nations people are more criminal than the immigrants who have taken their land?

I cannot remember where I was when I heard this, I think I was in the car on my way to work several years ago, but the former Premier of Western Australia mentioned that when comparing traffic infringements, those detected remotely through speed cameras, First Nations drivers were less likely to be caught speeding on the various cameras spread throughout the road network, but were far more likely to be charged for some offence or other through a traffic stop. I mentioned this at the time to a young Aboriginal work mate who told me that when he removed the Aboriginal flag from his car he was not pulled over for a random breath test or a licence check just for being on the road as happened frequently when the flag was on display. Each time the car was checked over. tyres, lights, seat belts, everything was checked and too often some small thing was found which resulted in a fine and a compulsory vehicle check.

Police presence in areas with a high Aboriginal population is more visible than in the quiet parts of suburbia, leading to a sense of intimidation, that there is a constant surveillance that is not evident in other parts of the suburbs.

First Nations people are as a group, the most disadvantaged in Australia. A lack of opportunity for employment, too much time and not enough money entrench a sense of ‘not good enough’, and the depression which flows from that sense of worthlessness, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness.

Drug and alcohol abuse are endemic in such environments, not just within First Nations communities, but in all places where the ‘Shit Life Syndrome’ is evident. (The term was coined to describe post-industrial communities in Britain where the good, well-paying jobs had gone and the people who remained were left in a post-industrial wasteland with few job prospects and very little money besides government relief payments.)

None of this is new, in fact it has been going on for over 236 years. Cognitive Bias toward Aboriginal people has been the defining attitude, a looking down the nose at those who are deemed to be lesser beings than the immigrants who have taken over the land. And last year we missed an opportunity to correct some of the misconceptions that have so marked our attitude and behaviour toward Aboriginals. It seems that ‘we have all the answers… but they just don’t get it’.

Time after time, study after study, the answers are the same, build more jails, heavier policing, ban alcohol, take the kids away from dysfunctional communities, one suggestion was to ‘just stop them from breeding’.

But it seems that those who know it all are not really good at listening. At understanding the anger which intergenerational grief and dispossession has allowed to fester as another set of edicts is thrown down to settle the lawlessness of kids running riot and men inflicting violence against women in alcohol fueled rages, just bring in more police, heavily armed with tasers and guns to take care of it.

But can we find hope in this apparent hopelessness?

It seems that there are some optimistic voices, if those at the top of the tree will come down and really listen, engage in active listening, as Judy Atkinson outlined in a TED talk in 2017, ‘The value of deep listening – The Aboriginal gift to the nation.’

There is an anger across this nation that we choose not to acknowledge.

It is an anger fuelled by racism, prejudice, discrimination and poverty. A distressed discontent that is growing, not just here but around the world. But under anger is always grief

There is a truth in this country we must confront as we move into maturity. The grief of separation and loss, of shame, of pain, deep and unresolved. A woundedness that is much more more than the commemoration of the Anzacs and much more than the celebration partying and boozing that we have on Australia Day. This country is more than that. It has to be. It holds the trauma of many people across many generations. The Indigenous. The invaders. The immigrants. All seeking refuge from pained disorder that we humans are so good at creating in this world.

It is time we started the work of deep listening. We, all together, the Is coming to we. Working with each other for transformation. Listening. Listening deeply to one another in contemplative reciprocal relationships, a mindfulness to the multiple stories in the lands we call home Miriam-Rose (Ungunmerr-Baumann) said Dadirri is the Aboriginal gift to this nation, a gift that we all have been waiting for. it is the gift of listening.

If you accept this gift, as a nation we can all grow together.

(Julianne Shultz. The Idea of Australia Page 89.)

 

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Homelessness funding guarantee will save critical jobs

Homelessness Australia Media Release

Homelessness Australia has strongly endorsed the Federal Government’s decision to plug a $73 million funding shortfall for homelessness services.

Funding for the Equal Remuneration Order (ERO) supplementation for homelessness services to cover the wages of the workforce was due to expire in July 2024.

Homelessness Australia CEO Kate Colvin congratulated the Government for listening to front-line homelessness workers.

“This decision, communicated in the Housing and Homelessness Ministerial Council meeting communique released today, will give certainty to hundreds of homelessness workers who are on the front lines of the housing crisis,” she said.

“The Federal Government has listened to a broad coalition of leading homelessness advocates and unions which fought for this funding to be locked in.

“It’s clear from this decision the government recognises the depth of the housing crisis and committed to working with homelessness services to tackle it.

“The reality on the ground is heartbreaking. Every day, families and children are left without a roof over their heads, sleeping in cars or worse.

“Workers in this sector face enough challenges without worrying about their job security.

“The Federal Government’s move will be a huge relief for not only the workers affected but the people who they help every single day.”

 

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Capital cities to swelter through twice as many days above 35°C unless stronger climate action is taken

Climate Council Media Release

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL CITIES are set to swelter through twice as many days above 35°C by the end of the century, a detailed analysis from the Climate Council has found.

But there’s hope: reducing climate pollution globally now could slash the number of scorching days by an average of 20 percent across Australian communities.

Thousands of data points from CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology’s Climate Change in Australia project were analysed by the geospatial team Spatial Vision, who worked alongside the Climate Council to develop a new interactive heat map tool.

The map projects the average number of hot and very hot days, as well as very hot nights, for each Australian suburb by 2050 and 2090 under three scenarios:

  1. No action, where global emissions rise throughout the 21st century
  2. Existing action, what we’d see if all countries meet their current commitments for emission reductions
  3. Necessary action, a much stronger pathway that requires almost all countries, including Australia, to substantially strengthen their existing climate commitments and actions.

Any Australian can input their suburb or postcode to the heat map, to see how stronger action on climate pollution can affect the heat in their area.

Amanda McKenzie, Climate Council CEO said: “Climate pollution is rapidly turning up the heat in Australia. Whether we live in cities or regional towns, all Australians are sweltering through even hotter days and killer heatwaves.

“Australia must keep building out renewable energy to completely phase out pollution from coal, oil and gas and protect our families from unlivable temperatures. If we don’t take further steps now, some neighbourhoods and communities will become so hot people will struggle to live there. It’s not something that’s far off, it’s here now and it will define the coming decades.

“This map makes it clear that Australia’s pathway to cut climate pollution this decade will play a critical role in determining the future health and prosperity of entire communities across our country.”

Head of Research at the Climate Council Dr Simon Bradshaw said: “This tool empowers Australians to see the real impacts of climate pollution in their own neighbourhoods.

“Choices being made this decade will dramatically affect the kind of community our children and grandchildren inherit. Cutting climate pollution further will limit the number of extremely hot days and the number of very warm nights we’re forced to endure, and ensure a better future for all Australians.”

Doctors for the Environment Australia executive director Dr Kate Wylie said: “Extreme heat is lethal. Dangerously hot temperatures put our health and wellbeing at serious risk, and threaten our families, community and animals.

“As well as the risks of heat exhaustion and heat stroke in extreme conditions, we know that heat exposure increases the risks of many serious illnesses, such as heart and respiratory diseases, mental health presentations and premature births.

“Older adults, infants and young children, pregnant women, people with underlying health conditions and those living in vulnerable communities have a heightened risk of illness during heatwaves. But by embracing renewable energy and cutting climate pollution, we can shield our communities from the worst consequences of extreme heat and safeguard our future health.”

Key findings and local impact

Western Sydney / New South Wales

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Western Sydney will swelter through twice as many days above 35°C by 2050 and three weeks above 35°C every summer.
  • The urban heat island effect notably worsens living temperatures in Western Sydney, with materials like asphalt and concrete amplifying heat. This can elevate temperatures by as much as 10 degrees during extreme heat, exacerbating climate change and urban development challenges.

Darwin / Northern Territory

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Darwin could experience four times as many days over 35°C each year by mid-century, with residents facing almost three months of extra days above 35°C by 2050.
  • If no action was taken to reduce climate pollution, by 2090, Darwin could experience a whopping 283 days over 35°C each year – an increase of 243 days – and a similar number of nights above 25°C. In other words, by the time a child born today is entering retirement, the city could be facing temperatures over 35°C for more than nine months of the year.
  • Housing in remote communities in the Northern Territory is often old and badly constructed, with little insulation. Climate change is turning these houses into ‘dangerous hot boxes’ that threaten the health of residents, especially older people and those with existing health conditions.

Perth / Western Australia

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Perth could swelter through twice as many days above 35°C by 2050.
  • This summer, people in Perth have had a taste of the hotter future to come, with unprecedented late-summer heatwaves. In February, Perth set a new record for the number of days over 40°C in a single month, with 7 consecutive days of sweltering heat.

Melbourne / Victoria

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Melbourne residents face double the number of days above 35°C by 2050.
  • Extreme heat poses a growing threat to sporting competitions such as the Australian Open, challenging player safety. Losing tournaments like the Australian Open will negatively impact Victoria’s economy and Australia’s international reputation as a major event destination.

Canberra / ACT

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Canberra residents face twice as many days above 35°C by 2050.

Brisbane / Queensland

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Brisbane faces three times as many days above 35°C by 2050 and four times as many by 2090.
  • Extreme heat is critically endangering flying fox populations, causing mass fatalities and pushing the species towards extinction.

Adelaide / South Australia

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Adelaide faces an extra week of days above 35°C by mid-century.
  • South Australia’s wine regions, including the Barossa Valley, face threats from climate change with rising temperatures hastening grape ripening, impacting quality. Adapting through new grape varieties or relocating vineyards remains costly and complex.

Hobart / Tasmania

  • Based upon existing action to reduce climate pollution, by mid-century the extreme temperatures Hobart experienced over the 2019-20 summer could become the norm.
  • Rising sea surface temperatures off Tasmania’s coast, which are rising nearly four times faster than the global average, is endangering Tasmania’s marine life and fisheries. The longest marine heatwave in 2016 devastated commercial species.

 

SEE THE CLIMATE COUNCIL’S CLIMATE HEAT MAP HERE

 

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“Golden time” seasonal farming production destroyed and lost in northern Gaza amid mounting fears of worsening hunger and starvation

Oxfam Australia Media Release

Gaza farmers’ two-month-long “golden time” of agricultural production has been destroyed by Israel’s military bombing and sealing of northern Gaza, ruining the enclave’s richest farmlands which are one of its biggest sources of fruit and vegetables.

With Israel’s actions also severely restricting humanitarian aid, the loss of local agricultural production is worsening malnutrition and hunger, leading to starvation and fears of worst to come for the 300,000 people estimated still now living in northern Gaza.

“The risk of genocide is increasing in northern Gaza because the Government of Israel is ignoring one of the key provisions of the International Court of Justice, to provide urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance,” said Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa director. Israel reported privately to the ICJ Monday.

Oxfam’s partner organisation, the Palestinian Agricultural Development Association (PARC) – one of the biggest local organisations focused on agricultural support – estimates that nearly a quarter of northern Gaza’s farm holdings were completely destroyed by Israel forces, which razed greenhouses and buildings and 70% of Gaza’s fishing fleets in the initial days of bombings and incursion.

PARC Director of Operations in Gaza, Hani Al Ramlawi, told Oxfam yesterday that “these next two months should be the golden time of production. However, if farms haven’t already been destroyed then they have been made impossible to access, because any farmer trying to do so will be directly targeted by Israel forces. And without water, and without electricity farmland means nothing.”

Malnutrition is rife and there are reports of death by starvation. Oxfam partners talk of people drinking toilet water, eating wild plants, using animal fodder to make bread, and they speak about “catastrophic hunger” and their fear of famine without some breakthrough in access, aid and security. “You cannot imagine these conditions,” Al Ramlawi said.

Juzoor, another Oxfam partner and one of the few organisations still operating in northern Gaza, reports similar fears about rising malnutrition and hunger. It introduced a vaccine program last month in the 13 shelters where it operates and also did nutritional screenings of 1,700 children there.

Juzoor Director, Dr Umaiyeh Khammash, told Oxfam yesterday that they found out that 13% of the children they measured there are acutely malnourished. Among them, around 55 to 60 children (3%) were suffering from severe wasting and underweight.

“This is a life-threatening condition,” Khammash said. “They need to be managed in an advanced setup, a hospital or specific feeding program, none of which exist now in northern Gaza. If they are not going to receive proper management and supplementation immediately, in the coming days or weeks, those children are going to die.”

There are perhaps 300,000 civilians still in northern Gaza who have been almost entirely cut off for four months and, according to Al Ramlawi, “left behind from an international humanitarian response that has pledged never to leave anyone behind”, he said.

“The landscape is complete destruction, The farmers, the people, the animals have nothing. The minimum requirements to stay alive do not exist in North Gaza.”

Palestinians in Gaza depend on local agriculture not just for their food but also their livelihoods. The sector is worth over $575m a year, Al Ramlawi said, and that the loss of crops for both sustenance and income “not only exacerbates the already dire humanitarian situation but will have severe long-term impacts”.

“This crisis will lead to the overall collapse of Gaza’s agriculture for many years to come.”

PARC is still managing to deliver some aid locally, last week “we found a trader to provide warm clothes and other winterisation assets for around 100,000 people,” Al Ramlawi said. “Food prices are crazy, most of the people in North Gaza cannot buy commodities. A kilo of flour has gone from five shekels to 180 – who can buy this?” He said the cost of providing a humanitarian food parcel was now three times more expensive in northern Gaza to procure than in Rafah, and at less quality.

“How many days, hours, seconds, do we need to wait to provide those people with the services and aid they need? Do we need to lose all the people in north Gaza? What are we waiting for? We need to convince the world to care about this issue,” he said.

 

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Destabilizing Australia: Will the LNP’s Culture Wars Be Victorious?

By Denis Bright

The hopeful possibilities of reaching out to build a better future for Australians and for our peaceful regional neighbours are under challenge across the political spectrum from more opportunistic political goals. There are possibilities of a return to more social democratic agendas through better policy management in our existing market economy.

The Poll Bludger has conveniently summarized the political milestones which can be scarred by such manipulative politics. Perhaps positive existential changes are in the autumn winds for consolidation by Easter 2024.

Political Milestones Ahead

Here is a quick glance at just three emergent milestones in Dunkley on Outer Melbourne’s Southeast, Ipswich West in Queensland and Tasmania.

Dunkley by-election – 2 March

Inala by-election – 16 March

Ipswich West by-election – 16 March

Queensland councils – 16 March

Tasmania – 23 March

Dunstan by-election – 23 March

Cook by-election – Early 2024

Tasmanian Legislative Council – 4 May

Northern Territory – 24 August

NSW councils – 14 September

Australian Capital Territory – 19 October

Queensland – 26 October

Western Australia – 8 March 2025

Federal election – By 24 May 2025<

Introducing Dunkley Electorate

The federal LNP will benefit from the campaign by Advance as it strives to convince voters that their cost-of-living concerns are all due to the Albanese Government. There is not a scrap of evidence that the Albanese Government is fuelling inflationary pressures by over-spending. If there is a policy negative it is due to overly cautious responses to cost-of-living challenges.

Nikki Savva’s opinion piece in the SMH (15 February 2024) captured the mindset of Peter Dutton on his mission to win Dunkley for conservative populism. Dated polling released through Wikipedia for Dunkley shows that Labor is slightly ahead in polling from uComms.

The polling predicts a remarkably close result. Expect updates later this week to show the impact of the aggressive style of campaigning by both the LNP and the Advance lobbying network. The funding and steering committee of Advance should be fully investigated by mainstream media as this lobbying group seeks to have a higher profile in Australian political life.

 

Waiting for a Polling Update in Dunkley

 

A better-than-expected result for Labor’s Jodie Belyea in Dunkley, might make Peter Dutton a casualty of the by-election campaign.

Now Moving onto Ipswich West in Queensland

Once again, conservative populists have tried to make the Ipswich West by-election results an embarrassment for Labor’s Premier Steven Miles with a focus on tough on crime strategies.

Readers can listen to the tone of political discussion in Ipswich West as reported by Radio 4BC to evaluate the even-handedness of the interview between Peter Gleeson and the endorsed LNP Candidate, Darren Zanow.

The negative coverage of the performance of the Queensland Labor Government in this Radio 4BC interview on issues relating to crime and cost-of-living increases contrasts with the current government towards the City of Ipswich.

Both tough on crime strategies and attacks on levels of government spending have a long political history in Ipswich.

Almost a century ago now, the state seats of Rosewood and Ipswich fell temporarily as the Great Depression approached in 1929, a few months before the Great Crash on Wall Street. The seat of Bremer remained with Labor. Both William Cooper in Rosewood and Dave Gledson in Ipswich failed to win their local seats that year. The current state seat of Ipswich West now includes parts of the Ipswich and Rosewood electorates. This gives Ipswich West a level of volatility which has sent two separate LNP representatives to parliament since 1960 and a One Nation state member.

Responding to concerns about crime in Ipswich, the Queensland Premier and Police Minister Mark Ryan announced the following initiatives on 24 February 2024:

The Miles government is making a further significant investment in the capabilities of the Ipswich Police District.

Following a request from the Queensland Police Service for additional police resources for the Ipswich Police District, the government is providing the Queensland Police Service with a funding boost of $37.6 million to deliver the following additional resources:

Premier Steven Miles assured the voters in Ipswich West that:

… Every Queenslander should feel safe in their homes and community. There will always be more police under my government.

This investment will see dozens more police officers, mobile police beats, and extra resources.

This is to keep residents safe, and to catch offenders…

But Labor’s Tough on Crime Strategies must always be embedded in Labor values to protect human rights with the delivery of sustainable and socially just economic and community development policies. This contrasts with the imprisonment of the now deceased Bob Gibbs MLA (Wolston electorate in Ipswich) for joining in Right to March resistance during the Bjelke-Petersen era in the 1980s.

Street crime is not the only form of criminal activity which state Labor governments have successfully confronted. Previous Labor Governments of Queensland have come down heavily on corrupt practices in the corridors of power and influence within the former Independent Ipswich City Council. This Council was placed under the control of a team of administrators with criminal convictions and even prison sentences to the worst offenders (Brisbane Times 9 January 2020).

Labor also formed the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) under the Goss Government in the 1990s as an income earner for the people of Queensland through strategic investment programmes. Unlike Queensland Treasury investments in the Bjelke-Petersen era, the QIC became a quasi-independent investment arm of the Queensland Government. Although the state premier and state treasurer are the only supervising shareholders in the QIC, it is quite unethical for them to be involved in day-to-day operations of the investment fund. However, the Queensland Government can make recommendations to the QIC to implement its planning goals (ShapingSEQ Plan 2023).

Premier Steven Miles in his capacity as Minister for Infrastructure was quite prepared to note my suggestions about the use of QIC investment and direct state government funding for the redevelopment of parts of the Ipswich CBD at a social function at parliament house in November 2023. It is an asset to have such approachable leaders in office with polling profiles that are tracking upwards in the latest poling from uComms in The Courier Mail (24 February 2024).

Co-investment between government agencies and the private sector can strengthen the economic, social and environmental goals embedded in the ShapingSEQ Plan 2023. It is an outreach of the New Keynesianism which has no rapport in far-right LNP circles with their fixation on the bricks and mortar of suburban shopping complexes in places like Yamanto in the Ipswich West electorate. Responsible government intervention can broaden the base of such projects.

Yamanto Shopping Village is a neighbourhood centre anchored by a high performing Woolworths supermarket, Super Amart, McDonalds, Caltex and another 25 specialty tenants. The village is situated on a prominent corner location 35km south-west of Brisbane and 5km south of Ipswich City Centre.

It is a credit to the Queensland Government that revenue from the QIC is available to enhance community development options across Ipswich. QIC returned $127.1 million in profits to the state government with a return of 20 percent on assets in the latest available annual report for 2022-23 from assets under management.

Not all its decisions have great logical appeal, including the wisdom of some QIC’s property investments in the USA in shopping malls and offices to deliver profits back to Queensland.

At the far-off Ohio State University in Columbus, the QIC invested $US483 million in the management of CampusParc to manage the car-parking facilities for students and staff as well as clients to the Wexner Medical Centre on Campus in 2012. This property asset has almost doubled in value according to Bloomberg’s Company News Report (27 September 2023). QIC has invested in similar facilities at Northeastern University in Boston with another 50-year contract. Profit taking on such deals can provide additional revenue for the Queensland Government.

A cool one billion dollars at least would be available from the sale of some US property assets from the still lucrative US property market could assist in revitalising the Ipswich CBD through new co-investment arrangements to transform Top of Town in Ipswich which has suffered from decisions by previous Independent Ipswich City Council administrations to move the hub of retailing across the Bremer River to the Riverlink Shopping Centre with great problems to cross-river traffic flows.

The movement of the hub of retailing in Ipswich to the Riverlink Shopping Centre in North Ipswich through the efforts of insiders in the former Independent Ipswich City Council still needs further investigation by Queensland CCC. Hopefully, QCC’s prior investigations of these issues are not permanently closed.

Installing a new member of parliament at a mid-term by-election is always challenging as shown by the close results in a previous by-election which made the transition from a retiring Ivor Marden MLA to Vi Jordan MLA in 1966. This was indeed a close call. This time Wendy Bourne does not have such high-profile contenders to challenge her transition to serve the people of Ipswich West (Images: Wikipedia).

 

 

 

And Onto the Tasmanian Elections

Any tidal wave of favourable LNP election results in Dunkley, Inala and Ipswich West, would create some momentum for survival of the Rockliff Liberal Government which is the last cab off the rank in this round of elections in March 2024 (Image: Wikipedia)

 

The Current State of Play in Tasmania

 

Available polling from Tasmania still predates the decision of the currently dissident Independents and former Liberal Party members to bring down the government. The Jackie Lambie Network (JLN) is now a significant factor in the forthcoming Tasmanian election. JLN was outpolling the Greens in the now dated YouGov polling (Image: Wikipedia):

 

 

 

If the JLN co-operates with Tasmanian Labor, Rebecca White could be premier after the Tasmanian elections. This would be a historic first to have Labor in-control of all Australian states and territories with Anthony Albanese in charge of the national government.

By the next full moon at Easter, these trendlines will have become political reality with immense longer-term impact on Australians. Keep watching the events as they unfold. Don’t be afraid to have your say on the AIM Network Feedback line unless you want the secretive streeting committees of Advance to have greater controls over our political futures.

Your critical responses are a real barrier to more sleep-walking into the future and more compromises with national sovereignty by obscure lobbyists.

Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.

 

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Human Rights?

By Bert Hetebry

The term Genocide was first used in 1945 to describe the deliberate, targeted killing of Jews by the German Nazi regime. It was a very specific term coined to describe the Nazi policies of systematic murder during the Holocaust combining the Greek word for race or tribe (geno) with the Latin word for killing (cide).

The word was first used in a legal setting during the Nuremberg Trials by a young lawyer, Benjamin Ferencz who was a chief prosecutor at those trials. A fresh faced young lawyer, just 27 years old, a small man, 5ft 2inches or just short of 1.6metres tall had to stand on a pile of books when he addressed the court so he could look over the lectern. Apart from using the word genocide, the phrase ‘crimes against humanity’ was used to place the actions of 22 men who oversaw and commandeered the Holocaust were seen to be tried not just as war criminals but criminals in a far deeper sense. War crimes happen in war, soldiers kill soldiers and bomb places where there may be ‘collateral damage’, but the Holocaust was an action aimed at eliminating people based on their race, their religion and their ideologies.

The German military, including the SS under the control of the Nazis were thorough in documenting their activities and reporting to the various government agencies including the ‘elimination of Jews, Gypsies and enemies of the Reich’, and these records were carefully archived and then used as evidence in prosecuting the case against those senior figures who were still alive and able to face the court.

As a result of the Second World War and the exposure of the inhumanity, the organised slaughter of about 13million people who were not soldiers fighting a war, as evidenced in the aftermath of the war, the opening of the death camps, the written records of those who reported their work to their superiors and the conducting of the Nuremberg Trial, a criminal trial, not a war crimes trial before impartial judges, the newly formed United Nations Organisation commissioned the Declaration of Human Rights which was presented to the General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948.

A further flow on from the Nuremberg Trials and the work of Ben Ferencz was the International Criminal Court in The Hague which recently heard charges against the State of Israel from South Africa over the devastation of Gaza and the treatment of the Palestinians who live in that enclave.

Unfortunately, crimes against humanity have continued despite the Declaration of Human Rights that all nations have signed up to. We witnessed the horrors of the Vietnam war with indiscriminate poisoning using Agent Orange, a defoliant and poison that caused birth defects spina bifida, cleft palate, limb deformities, structural heart disease and hypothyroidism, the murderous Pol Pot regime in the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Cultural Revolution in China with its re-education camps, Biafra, and so many more post-colonial wars, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. and on and on goes the list.

And most recently, the ongoing conflict in Israel.

The catalyst for the devastation being wrought on Gaza and the Palestinian people was a brutal attack on a Kibbutz and Music Festival which saw about 1200 Israelis killed and 240 taken as hostages by the armed militia, Hamas. An unspeakable act of terrorism.

Rarely however is there mention of the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government, the virtual imprisonment of two and a half million people in the most densely populated area in the world, the Gaza Strip, an area of 365 square kilometres. (The Perth Metropolitan area of over 6,300 square kilometres has a similar population.) Nor of the treatment of Palestinians who live on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem and the intimidation they are subjected to from settler communities who are building new settlements as the Palestinians are forced or bullied off their lands. Nor the intimidation of multiple security checks, sometimes a matter of a few metres apart, the constant sense of surveillance with soldiers, fully armed in battle fatigues patrolling the streets of positioned on rooftops. The buildup of frustration in both areas have since the Nakbah, or ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 which saw over 700,000 people displaced, and the taking of the West Bank in 1967’s Six day War led to various skirmishes and attacks on Israel people, like the suicide bombers who were active in 1989 and from 2002 to 2005, the First and Second Intifada.

Both attacks, the Hamas attack that was the catalyst for the current conflict and the suicide bombings which targeted Israeli civilians are illegal under international law and are rightly condemned. That said, the frustration of living in such oppressive conditions as in Gaza where all services, water, food, sewerage, electricity are imported from Israel and can be cut off at the drop of a hat, or the frustration of the constant harassment the people on the West Bank and East Jerusalem are subjected to leads to retaliatory actions.

As we get the news flow from Israel and Gaza we are told that it is mainly women and children who are dying. Supplies of food and drinking water are in short supply and apart from people dying because the building they lived in are being blown to smithereens, they are dying of starvation and diseases that come from unsanitary living as over a million people are camping out in a cramped area without sanitation.

Women and children featured in the evidence and defence of the Nuremberg criminals. where the justification for killing children was that they would grow up to be enemies. And women give birth to children.

The Declaration of Human Rights was written as a response to the inhumanity of the Holocaust which saw the killing of 13 million people because of their race, their religion, their ideologies were not acceptable to the Nazi regime in Germany. The races targeted were Jews and Gypsies, two marginalised groups, marginalised not just in Germany, but in much of Europe, and marginalised for centuries, Jews for their religious beliefs, Gypsies were ‘the wandering spirits of the earth’. On ideologies, these included homosexuals and people with disabilities.

Palestinians are marginalised in Israel, but not just in Israel, also in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Egypt where they are placed in Refugee camps, denied employment, treated as second class people and have really nowhere to go.

It seems those who ignore history are likely to repeat it while those who know history can only look on in wondrous amazement.

 

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Desperation grows in Ukraine war, two years on

Australia for UNHCR Media Release

Australia for UNHCR is appealing for renewed support for Ukrainians as conditions worsen two years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Since the war began on 24 February 2022, two million homes have been bombed, at least 70,000 people have been killed, and millions have been forced to flee.

“Fierce attacks continue, destroying homes, hospitals and energy infrastructure,” Australia for UNHCR CEO Trudi Mitchell said.

“Families are sheltering in crowded accommodation centres or badly damaged houses with no piped water, gas or electricity, while a bitter winter increases the need for life-saving aid.”

More than 14 million people need humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, a staggering 40 per cent of the population.

In frontline areas such as Donetsk and Kharkiv, constant bombardment means people are forced to spend their days in basements. Children cannot play outside, let alone attend school.

“The fighting has escalated and the humanitarian situation in the country is dramatic and urgent,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said during a recent visit to the country.

“Millions have been forced to flee the war and Russian attacks, and they are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.”

The United Nations Refugee Agency and its partners are providing cash assistance so people can buy food, fuel, medicine and warm clothing.

Teams are also providing repairs to homes, legal aid to help people obtain civil documents damaged or lost in the war, and counselling to help families deal with trauma.

UNHCR’s dedicated teams have been on the ground since the beginning. We will stay and deliver for the people of Ukraine for as long as is needed – but we can’t do it alone,” Ms Mitchell said.

“When the war first broke out, Australia for UNHCR received record donations. I’m asking Australians once again to think of the people of Ukraine and to donate what they can.

 

Donations welcome at Ukraine Crisis Appeal.

 

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Peak housing bodies and unions urge end to funding uncertainty

Leading homelessness advocates and unions have united in a joint push for state and federal housing ministers to plug a $73 million funding black hole that threatens to worsen the homelessness crisis by jeopardising the future of 700 critical support jobs, as ministers meet today.

Homelessness services are overwhelmed by surging demand as the nation faces its worst housing crisis in living memory.

Each day homelessness services are forced to turn away 295 people due to a lack of resources. New analysis of the most recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data reveals the number of children sleeping rough, even after seeking homelessness assistance, has surged 20 per cent.

Homelessness Australia calculates an additional $450 million is needed to meet demand for homelessness support. Despite surging demand, services are staring down the barrel of funding cuts. A $73 million funding black hole exists because funding previously provided to meet the costs of the Equal Remuneration Order (ERO) expires in June 2024.

The joint letter outlines the severe consequences if the $73 million funding shortfall is not fixed. “If the funding cut proceeds, homelessness service capacity will be slashed by more than 700 homelessness workers nationally, supercharging pressure on an already overwhelmed homelessness system,” the letter reads.

Kate Colvin, CEO of Homelessness Australia, said the uncertainty was playing havoc with Australia’s response to the crisis. “The reality on the ground is heartbreaking. Every day, families and children are left without a roof over their heads, sleeping in cars or worse. This is not just a funding issue. It’s a human crisis that demands compassion and commitment.”

The letter notes findings from a recent survey of 252 workers in frontline homelessness support services, showing the emotional toll of having to turn people away. Concerningly, 56 per cent of respondents rated the emotional impact at the maximum score of ten, with 84 per cent highlighting the detrimental effects of potential funding cuts.

“Workers in this sector are confronted by extremely difficult choices already, like picking between a mother and child fleeing violence or a teenager without a home. The last thing they need is uncertainty about their job or that of their colleague,” Colvin said.

Negotiations on homelessness funding over the next five years from July 2024 are set to take place at the Housing and Homelessness Ministerial Council meeting today.

Signatories to the letter, including Homelessness Australia, the Australian Services Union, Community Housing Industry Association, and ACOSS, are urging an immediate guarantee that funding will not be cut. They are also calling for plans to increase service capacity to meet the demand from Australians facing homelessness.

 

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Israel/oPt: UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls

United Nations Media Release

UN experts* today expressed alarm over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received. “We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces,” the experts said.

The experts expressed serious concern about the arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls, including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers, in Gaza and the West Bank since 7 October. Many have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten. On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.

“We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the experts said. They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.

The experts expressed concern that an unknown number of Palestinian women and children, including girls, have reportedly gone missing after contact with the Israeli army in Gaza. “There are disturbing reports of at least one female infant forcibly transferred by the Israeli army into Israel, and of children being separated from their parents, whose whereabouts remain unknown,” they said.

“We remind the Government of Israel of its obligation to uphold the right to life, safety, health, and dignity of Palestinian women and girls and to ensure that no one is subjected to violence, torture, ill-treatment or degrading treatment, including sexual violence,” the experts said.

They called for an independent, impartial, prompt, thorough and effective investigation into the allegations and for Israel to cooperate with such investigations.

“Taken together, these alleged acts may constitute grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and amount to serious crimes under international criminal law that could be prosecuted under the Rome Statute,” the experts said. “Those responsible for these apparent crimes must be held accountable and victims and their families are entitled to full redress and justice,” they added.

* The experts: Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; Dorothy Estrada Tanck (Chair), Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstić, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi, Working group on discrimination against women and girls.

The experts are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN human rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms. Special Procedures mandate-holders are independent human rights experts appointed by the Human Rights Council to address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent of any government or organisation and serve in their individual capacity.

 

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Urgent call for Australian Centre for Disease Control to reconcile COVID-19 health advice

Public Health Association of Australia Media Release

Public health experts are calling for the Federal Government to urgently implement and properly resource the proposed Australian Centre for Disease Control (ACDC) to ensure COVID-19 advice is consistent across Australia.

The call from the Public Health Association of Australia comes as public health experts await further details of the ACDC promised by the Albanese Government during the 2022 federal election. The ACDC was set up as a $90m interim body on 1 January 2024, but is yet to be formally established or receive ongoing funds.

Professor Simone Pettigrew, health communication expert from the George Institute for Global Health, says the current situation could be negatively impacting public health outcomes as COVID-19 continues to spread across the country.

“The current COVID-19 messaging differs in complexity, priority and content between the states and territories,” Prof Pettigrew said. “That makes it harder for Australians to interpret health advice.

“Residents of some states may be receiving more or less effective guidance compared to others.

“A single, clear and consistent source of truth would undoubtedly improve public health outcomes.”

Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin, CEO, Public Health Association Australia, says that the current situation points to the pressing need for quick action to get the ACDC up and running and well resourced.

“We appreciate the excellent work of the states and territories to provide thorough and reliable guidance on COVID-19, and acknowledge the efforts of each health department,” he said.

“We learned during the peak of the pandemic that clear, consistent and accessible information was paramount.

“But the simple truth is that people around Australia are receiving varying advice on how to best protect themselves when it comes to COVID-19.

“Inconsistencies around emphasis, priority and language used underscore the urgent need for the full and proper establishment of the ACDC. This is exactly why this body was promised by the Australian Government.

“Australians deserve a consistent, credible, carefully researched and framed nationwide set of public health information.

“The time is now for the Government to enact its commitment, to fund the ACDC to the level necessary to fulfil its entire remit – including Chronic Disease Prevention – to ensure that all people in Australia have the best possible information at hand to protect their health.

“To continue our ACDC rock band references, we’ve only a few metres worth of funding for a Highway to Health. We can’t accept Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”

 

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The Hero Haunted World

By James Moore

I do not understand. Perhaps, I never will. Does anyone?

As Russia kills innocents in Ukraine and dissidents within its own borders, a former American president refuses to criticize the murderous dictator. Maybe, it’s because he idolizes the brutality and wants some of his own to deploy for political purposes on American soil. In the U.S. House, there is a refusal to provide military resources to save Ukraine from Russia’s expanding totalitarianism while the American government has already armed Israel’s attack on Gaza to the point the wider world has begun to view it as the facilitation of a genocide. Israel, however, refuses to be chastened even by the humanitarian concerns only recently expressed by its most significant benefactor, U.S. taxpayers. Meanwhile, the U.S., once the moral and democratic guidepost for other nations, wants to sanction South Africa for calling out genocide in Gaza. The contradictions and hypocrisies can hardly be catalogued or annotated.

Who can keep up?

But Russia’s Putin may have hastened his own demise with his murder of opposition leader Alexi Navalny. Political movements often crystalize with the acquisition of a martyr. Navalny, even after being imprisoned in a six-by-seven foot cell after an attempted poisoning, never relented in his fight against Putin’s control. He may have been sent to a prison north of the Arctic Circle, beaten and poisoned until he died, but his words and aspirations for his country have been amplified in death. Russia cannot incarcerate all the citizens who will begin to gather in the streets and demand democracy and freedom, unless the entire nation is turned into a gulag. Deposing Putin seems more of a possibility for the Russian people today than while Navalny was drawing breath, and his wife, fearlessly, has taken up his cause and his message.

 

 

Putin will not stop killing his detractors and opponents, however, until he is out of power or out of breath. The threat of a nuclear event will also not be eliminated while he controls Russia’s military and is able to continue selling oil to India and China. Sanctions are not reducing his oppressions, and in this country, a former president sees himself as a Navalny-like hero instead of the Putinesque villain. He wants authoritarian rule like Putin but to be lionized as if he were principled like Navalny. How does that work? Putin has found creative ways to get his political opponents to jump out of high rise buildings or fly in planes that point at the ground and the political right in the U.S. still aligns itself with the murderous machinations. A former American network TV host flies to Moscow and praises the dictator in an interview that amounts to a kind of journalistic fellatio, which encourages American MAGATs to see in Putin a powerful and decisive leader. The saner political world wonders how much more time is left on Putin’s clock before there is another Russian revolution.

While American politicians praise the defiance of Navalny and his courage of speaking truth to power, our judicial and political systems continue to push for the extradition and prosecution of Julian Assange, who shared a truth that American power did not want made public. The Wikileaks founder distributed 2007 videos of U.S. helicopter pilots gunning down two journalists and Iraqis in the streets. The total dead was eighteen civilians, which included two Reuters reporters and two children. The Apache helicopter pilots mistook shouldered video cameras for handheld RPG launchers, but also later laughed at the killings they had committed. Gunships had reportedly been dispatched to the area because U.S. soldiers had been dealing with small arms fire in that location earlier in the day. Assange and Wikileaks released a 39 minute video (below) showing the attack, which prompted global outrage.

 

 

Assange, who is considered by many publishers and reporters to be a hero for committing an act of journalism, is, instead, facing extradition from the UK to the U.S. and likely prosecution that could put him in prison for 170 years. The U.S. is in court in London pressing for Assange to be extradited to face numerous charges in America. We do not necessarily honor people in America who risk much to reveal the truth. Rather, we prosecute them because it risks revealing the horrors and the lies of our geo-political ambitions. Assange received the videos, and more than 750,000 classified and unclassified but sensitive documents, from Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army soldier who was convicted under the Espionage Act. Manning spent seven years in prison until her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama. Assange, meanwhile, held out with diplomatic immunity in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London while the CIA plotted to have him kidnapped or killed.

There is a tradition of American citizens releasing information of value to the public when it will inform them of the actions of their government that might be improper. There is also a tradition of prosecuting those citizens, emotionally and legally, whether it is Edward Snowden, who defected to Russia after revealing global surveillance operations by the CIA and NSA, or it’s Reality Winner, a U.S. Air Force veteran who released classified information to journalists about Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election. She received the longest prison sentence ever imposed for an unauthorized release of government information to the media, which would have little reason to suspect Russian meddling in U.S. elections without Winner’s actions. There is also, of course, Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1973 was charged under the Espionage Act for releasing the Pentagon Papers, an extensive analysis by the Department of Defense on flawed U.S. decision-making policies regarding the War in Vietnam. He was facing 115 years in prison until his prosecutors and investigators bungled evidence collection and all changes had to be dropped, even though the New York Times and Washington Post had published his massive report, which hastened the end of our Southeast Asian tragedy.

There ought to be no difficulty in deciding what kind of actions or character comprise heroism. They are definitely not contained in spray-tanned conmen who compare themselves and their 91 indictments to the heroic resistance of Alexi Navalny to the Russian killer of humans and facts. Heroes are not American politicians who decry the murder of Navalny for confronting Putin with facts while denouncing the release of information by Assange, who saw wrongs in how the U.S. was prosecuting the Iraq War, an invasion and occupation based upon a demonstrably false claim of weapons of mass destruction. Governments must, of necessity, keep some secrets to maintain advantage over adversaries and control threats to sovereignty but that hidden information ought not be protected when it hides facts that deceive citizens and their rights to know what their government is doing and why.

American history is replete, though, with the elimination and assassination of inspiring leaders who were taking the country in an informed direction toward equality of opportunity. Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy, exactly a century apart, had messages the nation wanted but other interests did not, whether it was JFK’s peace efforts to end the Cold War or Lincoln’s to reunite a nation and free people from slavery. Our own CIA was likely culpable in JFK’s death, and, according to the family of Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader was assassinated by the FBI, which had been listening to his plans with endless wiretaps. Bobby Kennedy’s death ended any hope of finding the truth about his brother’s murder in Dallas but there were other inspiring American figures who were wronged for confronting wrongs. Muhammad Ali was stripped of his heavyweight boxing title and lost years of earnings and competing because he resisted the draft and the War in Vietnam, and now we are engaged in funding a genocide in Gaza by Israel even as we proclaim our outrage of Putin’s assault on Ukraine.

It’s a sad country that has no heroes, and an even sadder one that needs them.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

James Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,” three other books on Bush and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as two novels, and a biography entitled, “Give Back the Light,” on a famed eye surgeon and inventor. His newest book will be released mid- 2023. Mr. Moore has been honored with an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his documentary work and is a former TV news correspondent who has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976.

He has been a retained on-air political analyst for MSNBC and has appeared on Morning Edition on National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, CBS Evening News, CNN, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, among numerous other programs. Mr. Moore’s written political and media analyses have been published at CNN, Boston Globe, L.A. Times, Guardian of London, Sunday Independent of London, Salon, Financial Times of London, Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets. He also appeared as an expert on presidential politics in the highest-grossing documentary film of all time, Fahrenheit 911, (not related to the film’s producer Michael Moore).

His other honors include the Dartmouth College National Media Award for Economic Understanding, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association, the Individual Broadcast Achievement Award from the Texas Headliners Foundation, and a Gold Medal for Script Writing from the Houston International Film Festival. He was frequently named best reporter in Texas by the AP, UPI, and the Houston Press Club. The film produced from his book “Bush’s Brain” premiered at The Cannes Film Festival prior to a successful 30-city theater run in the U.S.

Mr. Moore has reported on the major stories and historical events of our time, which have ranged from Iran-Contra to the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, the border immigration crisis, and other headlining events. His journalism has put him in Cuba, Central America, Mexico, Australia, Canada, the UK, and most of Europe, interviewing figures as diverse as Fidel Castro and Willie Nelson. He has been writing about Texas politics, culture, and history since 1975, and continues with political opinion pieces for CNN and regularly at his Substack newsletter: “Texas to the World.”

 

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New research highlights the growing prevalence and economic impact of non-competes

New research by the e61 Institute presents five facts on the use of non-competes and other post-employment restraints in Australia based on new ABS survey data.

New research by the e61 Institute presents five facts on the use of non-competes and other post-employment restraints in Australia. These facts highlight the economic relevance of restraint clauses, detail how firms deploy them and present preliminary evidence on the consequences of their proliferation.

“For the first time we have data from the employer side on the prevalence of non-competes and other post-employment restraint clauses. This is important because employers likely have a better awareness about the prevalence of these clauses than workers. It also allows us to better understand how firms of different sizes and in different industries deploy these restraints.” e61 Institute Senior Policy Fellow Dan Andrews said.

The e61 Institute research used data from a new ABS survey of firms, developed in collaboration with e61, to examine the use of restraint clauses. Combining this data with employment data, the e61 research found that a large share of Australian workers are subject to restraint clauses.

“Roughly one-fifth of the Australian workforce are currently subject to a non-compete. No-poach agreements are even more widespread, with almost a third of workers subject to a clause that restricts their ability to ‘poach’ former clients and almost a quarter subject to no-poach of co-workers agreement.” e61 Institute Senior Research Economist Jack Buckley said.

“Firms are also planning to increase their use of these restraints. Roughly 1-in-5 firms who do not currently use non-competes say that they will likely do so in the future.” Mr Buckley said.

There are large differences in the use of employment restraints between industries. The use of non-competes and other restraint clauses is particularly prevalent in knowledge-based service industries, where high-skilled labour is a key determinant of firm success.

“Restraint clauses likely provide a lot of private value to individual firms in these industries, but their use may be hurting the efficient allocation of talent and the diffusion of knowledge.” e61 Institute CEO Michael Brennan said.

Many firms appear to be deploying restraint clauses indiscriminately. Of firms who use non-competes and no-poach clauses, almost 80% are applying them to more than three-quarters of their workforce.

“This blanket application of non-competes and other restraints has the potential to adversely affect low wage workers who lack the bargaining power to negotiate over these terms.” Mr Andrews said.

The widespread use of post-employment restraints could be having a negative effect on job mobility and competition. Preliminary analysis conducted as part of the e61 research found that job mobility and firm entry rates were lower in industries with a higher prevalence of employment restraints.

However, Mr Buckey added that “this analysis comes with some important caveats, including the fact that it does not account for a range of omitted variables that could affect the relationship between restraint clause use, job mobility and firm entry rates.”

“More research is needed to understand the extent to which the use of restraint clauses has contributed to the decline in job mobility and competition. But our analysis adds support to the hypothesis that non-compete clauses and no-poach agreements act as a barrier to labour mobility and competition.” Mr Brennan said.

Key findings:

This note presents five new facts based on a new, high-quality firm-side survey to help policy makers better understand the prevalence, use and economic consequences of non-competes and other post-employment constraints in the Australian economy.

Fact1: A large share of Australian workers are subject to restraint clauses.

  • Non-disclosure clauses cover between one-half and two-thirds of the Australian workforce with a central estimate of 58%.
  • Between one-quarter and one-third of workers have clauses restricting their ability to poach former clients with a central estimate of 29%.
  • Roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of the Australian workforce are subject to non-compete and no-poach of co-workers agreements with a central estimate of 21% and 23% respectively.

Fact 2: Firms’ use of restraint clauses has increased over the past 5 years and is expected to increase further absent policy intervention.

Fact 3: Restraints are highly prevalent in knowledge-based service industries, potentially jeopardising the allocation of talent.

Fact 4: Many firms are deploying restraint clauses indiscriminately, potentially adversely affecting low wage workers who lack bargaining power.

Fact 5: Firm entry and job mobility rates appear to be lower in industries where restraint clauses are more prevalent.

 

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